The Outcome of Ecotourist Satisfaction in Kuala Tahan National Park: A Cluster Analysis Approach

Abstract

This study aims to provide a better understanding of tourist satisfaction in Kuala Tahan National Park (KTNP) as a protected area tourism destination. This study was conducted in a quantitative approach using a survey method for data collection. A total of 350 respondents were selected by purposive sampling. The study site was held in Kuala Tahan National Park. The questionnaire was used to collect the data and analysed with Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) version 25 using the descriptive analysis and mean cluster analysis. The findings generate the three clusters of tourist satisfaction that include high satisfied, in-betweenness, and low satisfied clusters and the outcome revealed the tourist satisfaction towards the KTNP destination is moderate satisfied or In-Betweenness clustered. The study is expected to provide ideas and guidelines to the destination managers and local service providers to increase their level of services offered at the KTNP destination to increase the number of visitors and repeat visitors to the destination. Study on destination service quality, tourist satisfaction, tourist perceived value, and tourist behavioural intention has been widely conducted by other researchers in urban context however in a natural setting environment still limited the number of studies related to examine the ecotourists segments differences, demographic elements and travel characteristics.

Keywords- tourist satisfaction, cluster analysis, nature-based tourism, National Park.